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Lent Activities for Small Children

I have a three year old and a four year old. They are too young for religious ed at our Church but I try to teach them stuff at home. Advent was fairly easy for me to come up with activities to do but I am having a harder time with Lent. We talked about giving up something and they decided on Cheetos. I tried to talk to them about Jesus dying because we all do stuff wrong. I don't know what else to do though. I am not sure if doing coloring pictures of the stations of the cross is appropriate or too graphic for this age. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

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Permalink Reply by Carol on February 26, 2010 at 1:18pm

Hi Kathy,

We have done Stations of the Cross with my 7,5,3 year old kids. Whether or not coloring is too graphic really depends on you kid's personality. Our kids seem to get it without dwelling too much.
We do an abbreviated Stations on Wed and Friday nights before bed. I printed some low key pictures off the internet and laminated them. Then I bought a bunch of votive candle holders (little glass bulb ones pretty cheap at craft store). We started with the first three, and have been adding one each time. Basically I display the pictures around the house with a candle in front of each. Then, we turn all the lights out except the candles and we visit each picture. My husband leads and we do the usual "We Adore you O Christ and we praise you. Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world." We genuflect during the last part (a great way to practice this with little ones). Then he reads a short meditation. I got my script from Michelle's blog The pictures she uses are the same ones I found on google images.
We have been singing the song with each station, but have skipped some of the other prayers since it seemed too long for them....we also do a story and an abbreviated rosary each night so bedtime can get long.
We also signed up for Holy Heroes Lenten Adventure. If all your kids do is watch the videos that is still great, but there are coloring pages and other activities too. (www.holyheroes.com). My kids like to watch and rewatch the short videos and feel like they know the Holy Heroes kids.
You could also do some simple baking. There are some really easy pretzel recipes out there and the kids can make crosses or praying hands (traditional pretzel shape) or other things. AND you can do it over and over again and they will still like it.